Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79 • Hacker News Board

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#81

Post by doctorpangloss » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:23 AM UTC

dcrazy wrote: post #71

mothballed wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read it. I'm 100% right. As used in Section 33700, “firearm barrel” means the tube, usually metal and cylindrical, through which a projectile or shot charge is fired. A firearm barrel includes any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body, or similar article that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled, or converted to be used as a firearm barrel, or that is m…

Your farcical take is predicated on an interpretation of the above paragraph in which the bill claims anything from which a projectile may be expelled is a firearm barrel. That is clearly not what the bill says, nor can it even be tortuously misconstrued as such.

I am sympathetic to the guy’s crank interpretation, because that’s exactly how lawsuits against development that drag on for ages work.

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#82

Post by mothballed » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:24 AM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #81

dcrazy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your farcical take is predicated on an interpretation of the above paragraph in which the bill claims anything from which a projectile may be expelled is a firearm barrel. That is clearly not what the bill says, nor can it even be tortuously misconstrued as such.

I am sympathetic to the guy’s crank interpretation, because that’s exactly how lawsuits against development that drag on for ages work.

It's also the way prosecutors constantly charge people with other laws.

They can drag in a potato cannon, maybe light it with some black powder if compressed air doesn't "count", and show that the PVC pipe readily expelled the projectile and thus the pipe by itself is a "firearm barrel" if it can readily be placed into such a potato gun. It would be no problem to prosecute someone for selling the PVC pipe to a plumber and 100% meet the letter of the law.

I don't see that as farcical but rather a straightforward application of the law. Maybe you find the law farcical/cranky but my interpretation isn't.

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#83

Post by doctorpangloss » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:25 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #22

outside2344 wrote: post #6

Honestly hope Senator Scott Wiener runs for governor

He's such a huge technocrat, it would be a big departure from most governors. A huge policy nerd with tons of good ideas and a powerful staff devoted to trying out new things is almost better than we deserve in California. (I will say that Wiener has had some missteps, on AI and restaurant fees, but they are pretty small compared to the good policy that he's gotten through.)

Ah yes, the technocrat who missteps on the most obvious political and policy wins…

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#84

Post by epistasis » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:29 AM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #81

dcrazy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your farcical take is predicated on an interpretation of the above paragraph in which the bill claims anything from which a projectile may be expelled is a firearm barrel. That is clearly not what the bill says, nor can it even be tortuously misconstrued as such.

I am sympathetic to the guy’s crank interpretation, because that’s exactly how lawsuits against development that drag on for ages work.

That's a bug of the judicial system's speed rather than the interpretation of law. A groundless lawsuit still needs to be heard through a glacial system before the result can be determined.

When time is money, such delays are takings from the applicant, and work like mafia protection money.

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#85

Post by harmmonica » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

bsder wrote: post #67

Bratmon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prop 13 is a religious document in California. You'd have more luck persuading the Catholic Church to repeal the Bible.

> Prop 13 is a religious document in California. Residential real estate isn't causing the big issue. It's been under Prop 13 long enough that people have died off and the properties are now sufficiently staggered that residential real estate reassesses even if it does so slowly. Consequently, it's not really religious to remove commercial real estate from Prop 13. The problem is that Prop 13 is worth sooooo much mon…

The vote was a bit closer than you might think for Prop 15, which was the last attempt, I think, to repeal Prop 13 for investment property. And in 2020 when that ballot measure was voted on the pro-repeal folks were nowhere near as organized as they are today. As I said in another comment I think there's a good chance that if they take another run at it they will succeed in repealing it for investment property because they will message aggressively that they're not after homeowners, which is what the investors convinced the electorate the last time they tried to repeal it for investment property.

And on the topic of residential, up until a few years ago if you died your heirs were allowed to inherit your tax basis, no strings attached, and so the "staggering" you're talking about has never really "staggered" en masse (if I'm understanding the way you're using that word). On top of that, even people who purchased property as late as 2020 are already massively benefiting from Prop 13. Each day home prices appreciate the new homeowner population just keeps replacing the dead in the anti-repeal camp for residential.

Edit: I was trying to put a footnote but it turned into italics so I just dropped the footnote

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#86

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:37 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #22

outside2344 wrote: post #6

Honestly hope Senator Scott Wiener runs for governor

He's such a huge technocrat, it would be a big departure from most governors. A huge policy nerd with tons of good ideas and a powerful staff devoted to trying out new things is almost better than we deserve in California. (I will say that Wiener has had some missteps, on AI and restaurant fees, but they are pretty small compared to the good policy that he's gotten through.)

[deleted]

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#87

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:37 AM UTC

jitl wrote: post #45

troad wrote: post #16

I'm not intimately familiar with Californian zoning, but I have to say, all this talk of the 'seventh Regional Housing Needs Assessment cycle' reminded me of the Five Year Plans used in socialist countries. I wish the people of California the best of luck exceeding dwelling quotas in the upcoming seventh cycle! :P Edit: I forgot how sensitive people can be to the word 'socialism'. I am not trying imply - with all the…

It’s quite common in the affairs of humans to plan recurring work on a schedule. It’s not quite as common to vote on the schedule and how to do it, but at least California seems to be a democracy in this respect.

[deleted]

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#88

Post by hamdingers » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:39 AM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #77

harmmonica wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think getting Prop 13 repealed along the lines of Prop 15 (basically for investment property) may actually happen. I think the pro group is much more organized today than they were in 2020 and so it will stand a much better chance of succeeding. That said, I fully agree with you that Prop 13 repeal for homeowners will "never" happen. The backlash would obviously be massive. But if they could keep it for homeowners…

Prop 13 is getting repealed practically speaking through time, as the main beneficiaries of the low taxes die; and the taxes they dynastically transfer to their kids get capped; and as those kids choose to sell those homes and move to New York. There is no one simple solution to e.g. poor performance of US public schools. Repealing Prop 13 isn’t going to close the achievement gap, it’s not even going to slow the fall…

> Prop 13 sort of being phased out naturally

I'm not sure how you're coming to this conclusion. When the property is transferred it is reassessed and the new buyer pays the full tax, but after that the taxes effectively decrease annually (increase at a rate lower than inflation). Everyone who owns a property more than a year or two in California benefits from Prop 13.

Nothing is phasing out and it has no sunset clause.

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#89

Post by epistasis » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:39 AM UTC

Supermancho wrote: post #79

epistasis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a health metric, not an environmental one. While brake dust is a major contributor to this, a suburb next to a freeway is going to be pretty damn bad too.

> While brake dust is a major contributor to this, a suburb next to a freeway is going to be pretty damn bad too. Relative to the rest of the area, for that specific pollutant, yes. Relative to a city dwelling of the same distance, no. Volume (ie Traffic) matters when comparing health impacts.

Freeway traffic next to suburbs is really the major driver here, with high speeds and tire microplastics (the biggest source of microplastics in the SF Bay Area is tires).

A suburbanite driving on their river of pollution for 50 miles every day is a much bigger impact than somebody taking the bus and train in the city. And even city streets do not see the level of pollution caused by freeways that snake through suburbs throughout the Bay Area and LA.

But honestly the gas stoves in most California kitchens are the true killer, yet nobody seems to even bother talking about that.

In any case: environmental metrics I had always thought about things that impact the environment: reduction of ecosystem, death of a particular types of animals (especially the ones we like), unhealthy water ways, etc. On all these, suburban life is absolutely horrific, urban and very rural life is pretty good. If you can drive to the Costco, you are probably living in the least environmentally friendly way possible.

As far as health metrics, whether from environmental effects or crime or the actual real killers: obesity, smoking, blood pressure, and heat disease, cities do better than rural areas:

https://schaeffer.usc.edu/research/rural-americans-dont-live...

Our cars are killing us in every way yet we refuse to acknowledge the massive health effects.

Re: Everything you need to know about California’s SB 79

#90

Post by ggm » Mon, Oct 13, 2025, 2:42 AM UTC

standardUser wrote: post #7

ggm wrote: post #2

It could take up to 5 years to come into full effect, from my skim of the article. So, as revolutions in housing go, this is slow-burn. Needed, won't fix housing next month or even next year. Sometimes I wonder if a state went out and bought the input supply stocks (wood, particleboard, roofing materials) and sold them below cost at the longer base-line price, but exclusively to builders constructing homes, if they c…

Multifamily housing developments take years to plan and build anyway, especially in California and especially in these urban areas.

No single thing will fix housing, and lots of things will interact to make any fix complicated and slow. The fast single things like forms of eminent domain and retrospective law changes turn out to incur massive legal cost to enact.

Short of seizing property and approvals for already lodged designs which were turned down for local opposition, it's all about time now. Time to start doing things under a new legal planning system.