Gandhi's position was different, and interesting. He believed that everyone was searching for the truth, and that violence was an attempt to take a shortcut -- that people who use violence believe themselves to be in possession of the truth, and that other people are "in the way" and need to be cut down as obstacles or as being delusional in their own beliefs. One's opponents are not people, they are objects in the way (like people who stand in your way when you are hurrying towards a bus, they become physical obstacles). The non-violent person tries to shock the opponent into recognizing the humanity of the other. He believed that non-violence was a better way of working towards the truth, and that the non-violent person used himself or herself physically as a guarantee that he or she was sincerely prepared to sacrifice himself or herself for the truth. This sincerity was a way of transforming the opponent, kind of a jiujitsu of the soul.
It raises hard questions about how to respond to the sadist and the madman, but that seems to have been his way.
yours, Peter T.