How Much of Your Stuff Belongs to Big Tech?

On July 26, 2015, William Merideth’s daughter was sunbathing on the deck of their house, in Hillview, Kentucky, when a drone flew over the back yard. The girl rushed inside to tell Merideth, who rushed out. The drone had whizzed on, but it soon returned. It was, Merideth would later say, “hovering” above him when he decided to plug it with his shotgun.

The drone, which cost its owner some fifteen hundred dollars, crashed into a nearby field. Merideth argued that he was justified in firing at it because it...