I think you're combining instances. A pistol was brandished at the census taker (not the shotgun) because the census taker couldn't seem to take "go away" for an answer. For the safety of the census workers, there should be a GTFO check box, so when someone doesn't want to answer questions and tells the census worker to GTFO they can just check that box. No reason to keep pressing like a reporter hounding on a juicy news story.
We don't know- and likely never will know- the full story on why the woman came to the man's defense if he was only being asked questions about the earlier census incident. My guess is they were about to arrest, beat, and taze him for possession of a weapon in the confines of his home. She should not have created the standoff by using the shotgun, as I said in that thread- she should have dialed 911 so the elderly beat-down would have been caught on tape, and could be presented in court. She *might* have survived a good tazing and hazing. She definately wasn't going to survive a service pistol lead injection.
Gotta pick your battles better than that.