Not enough facts in excerpt but salesperson did do something wrong - offering the .22 as appropriate for the coyote. Not really something an ethical person would do from a hunter’s perspective.
it is not up to the salesman to steer the sale when the buyer has a fixed dollar amount or wants a particular gun for whatever reason.
I have walked out of gun stores when I told the salesman I want a ‘Ruger such and such’ and he asked me...’well why the hell would you want to buy a ‘Ruger such and such’ when we have these ‘Taurus such and suchs’ cheaper and are better guns?...'
I walked into the store around the corner and got the gun I asked for in the first place....seeing as how I was not asking the salesman's opinion but buying a specific firearm....I find there are a considerable % of gun sales personnel who are obnoxious and overly opinionated, like that.....
I can kill any coyote on Earth with a good .22 rifle loaded with the high velocity ammo, nothing heavier is needed unless you are shooting at long range which is not going to happen when the coyote is in your yard. My older brother once told me that .22LR was too small to use on feral dogs that were roaming the rural area where we grew up but then he killed one of those dogs at at around 100 yards with a .22LR revolver!
The same brother had a medium size dog (about forty pounds) that chased a neighbor’s cattle and got shot with a .270 deer rifle, the bullet passed just beneath the spine at about the last rib. The dog survived and lived for years afterward, the only lasting effect was that it turned from yellow to white haired and stopped chasing cattle.