RyanM,
I'm not sure where you got "The "zipper method" is based on a couple ER doctors' opinions of what people tended to be in "the worst shape," and "the hardest to treat" when they got there." , can you give us some documentation on this, specifically that doctors even knew what the zipper actually was?
I train others in the "zipper". It's birth is from EU/ED [ elbow up/elbow down ] which describes the Fairbairn/Sykes WW2 half hip shooting postion, which puts the gun about level with the naval area of an opponent for the first shot, the elbow locked into your side and just above or at the belt line which is then followed with a rapid succession of shots as the arm is extended/pushed toward the assailant therby raising the level of the barrel and subsequent shots until the last shot is into the neck/head area.
The first shot of EU/ED is the fastest shot from the holster. The elbow is raised until the gun clears the holster and then mashed into the side of the hip/waist, the forearm leveled at that time and the gun fired as soon as the elbow touches your side and locked into that position.
In training, the students are instructed to fire as soon as the elbow touches the side of your body, like there is a button there that the elbow touches and the gun fires without hesitation.
The A hit in the abdominal region almost invariably causes a man to drop anything he has in his hands and to touch his stomach convulsively. from the referenced book is nothing more than reporting of the results Fairbairn/Sykes saw on the streets from the officers who were trained to use and fired thusly on opponents. Actual documentation, not hypothesis' nor conjecture, but facts in evidence.
So, with EU/ED we have the fastest shot from the holster [ Bill Jordan and Jelly Bryce also used this skill or a slight variation of it to good effect and again well documented on the streets ], to the region/level of the naval/belly due to the height of the barrel using this technique, and the resultant observations of people who dropped what they were holding in the vast majority of these shootouts [ these 600 some odd shootings were well documented as well ].
The zipper is just a continuation of the first skill set of EU/ED and the continued firing from that position while the gun/fist is punched out toward the opponent, thereby raising the barrel height in relation to the ground automatically.
The zipper also has the advantage of putting multiple rounds into multiple organs [ accepting the bullet weight and caliber is sufficient to get deep enough into these organs ] without hesitation. The effectiveness of the zipper is due to it's getting several organs bleeding immediately, which drops ones blood pressure faster than several rds into one neat group on one organ.
The zipper's simplicity is in the fact it would be devastating to the opponent hit COM and "stitched" up the middle from the gut to the neck/head posthaste as soon as the gun cleared leather and the barrel pointed at the opponent.
The zipper is not shooting for the naval area. It's a skill that starts with another more important skill that gets the gun on threat with the least amount of movement from the defender from the holster to muzzzle leveled and on threat [ translates to speed of shots on threat ].
and this But unless you hit the liver, the major arteries and veins going to and from the legs, or the spine, you're not going to cause a physiological incapacitation. is not actually true, and misleads in it's suggestion. Physiological stops can also be caused by a rapid loss of BP, which can be caused by getting multiple organs bleeding at the same time. Rapid loss of BP is physiological and does not require hits to arteries or veins, though the organs are a good bet as they are larger and therefore more likely to be hit.
Ever seen someone lose BP rapidly for any reason? They fall down and are pretty much incapable of clear thinking, the brain starved for oxygen rich blood. It's not instant incapacitation, but get someone to lose enough pressure quickly and watch how quickly they are not only a threat, but are close to death if the resultant shock from the loss of that BP is not controlled immediately.
honkeoki:
F/S were not suggesting to aim for the naval in their writings. They simply reported what happened when the troops/police they trained used the EU/ED they taught and what happened when those shots went into that area of the opponent. It's an important observation from real world gun battles, and you are well advised to learn all you can from those two gentlemen in their writings.
Brownie
