The U.S. Supreme Court is usually too far removed from Hawaii — literally and judicially — to make us sit up and take notice, except perhaps out of academic interest. Even one of the gut-wrenching decisions of this term — Kennedy v. Louisiana, which disallowed the death penalty for a brutal child rapist because the victim was not killed — does little to inform a state with no death penalty statute and little likelihood of getting one on the books.

But gun control? That’s a different matter. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court established for the first time that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a gun, distinct from the necessity of a “well-regulated Militia.” Hawaii’s attorney general, Mark Bennett, along with four other state attorneys general, had urged the court to rule in favor of giving a state broad latitude in regulating gun ownership, individual rights or not. This the court did not do. Nonetheless, by most accounts, the court provided enough room to challenge state laws but not enough to say with certainty that those laws are unconstitutional.

So it’s reasonable to expect that pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association will want to find out. It’s also reasonable to expect that Hawaii’s gun laws, which are fairly strict, will be challenged. So if you’ve ever felt the need to legally carry a concealed weapon, without the chief of police’s approval, you know were to go.

Hawaii’s near-shore waters share a couple of things in common with Alaska’s Prince William Sound. They are achingly beautiful, and oil tankers sail through them. Some twenty years after the Exxon Valdez dumped its load of crude into Prince William Sound, the Supreme Court, in Exxon Shipping v. Baker, reduced the punitive damages in the case to $500 million, down from the original jury award of $5 billion. This hardly seems punitive; it’s about four days of Exxon’s profits. Surely putting a lapsed alcoholic at the helm of a supertanker sailing through a major fishery and a treasured natural environment is worthy of real punishment, in light of the long-term destruction that decision wreaked. Punishment and deterrence are the point of punitive damages, after all.

The court also decided that, in general, punitive damages in maritime cases like this one should be equal to or less than compensatory damages. So if an oil tanker spills its contents off Hawaii waters — for whatever reason — don’t expect too much. Because apparently the plaintiffs in Alaska are learning that lesson the hard way.

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