I have seen this done quite a bit. Shooting the npc in the legs quickly 2x and then using q for knockout. I was consistently getting red guns as soon as the knock out was engaged. I am not sure if this method is relegated to freelancer, or shooting them in the legs only is the way to go to buy time?
I am sure this is covered elsewhere as well. I was unable to find anything via the search. If someone else has another thread to link too. That would be appreciated as well.