Did Jesus mean 'put away the sword'...but take up a club?

Jesus' words to Peter contain an important principle, an underlying truth that goes beyond what's just on the surface. For example, are his words any less applicable to a gun than a sword?

Back in fourth-century North Africa, among the thriving Christian population emerged an extremist group calling themselves Agonistici (meaning 'fighters for Christ'), but called by others Circumcellions. They sought out social reform and justice, as well as their own martyrdom, by actually provoking fights with others. They were misguided:

Troops of them were to be met in all parts of Africa. They had no regular occupation, but ran about armed, like madmen. They used no swords, on the ground that St. Peter had been told to put his sword into its sheath; but they did continual acts of violence with clubs, which they called "Israelites". They bruised their victims without killing them, and left them to die.

—The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 5; p. 125

They styled themselves the Lord's Champions (Agonistici); their song of "Praises to God" was heard, according to St. Augustine, with greater dread than the roaring of a lion . . . they supposed that our Lord's words to St. Peter (Matt. 26:52) forbade them the use of swords; they carried heavy clubs, called Israelites, with which they beat their victims—often to death.

—History of the Christian Church, "The Circumcellions", 1854; p. 182

The Circumcellions chose to take Jesus' words in the hyper-literal sense, simply switching out the method he mentioned, causing them in fact to end up doing the the very opposite of what he meant. For this they are almost universally critcized and ridiculed by those who know of them and claim to follow the Bible today. And yet...

Did God mean 'don't eat blood' ...but transfuse it?

What of the Bible's view of blood? Christians are told to 'keep abstaining from blood', reaffirming the earlier direction that God gave to his people: "If any man of the house of Israel or any foreigner who is residing in your midst eats any sort of blood, I will certainly set my face against the one who is eating the blood, and I will cut him off from among his people." (Acts 15:29; Leviticus 17:10)

The reason? God continues, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I myself have given it on the altar for you to make atonement for yourselves, because it is the blood that makes atonement by means of the life in it. That is why I have said to the Israelites: 'None of you should eat blood, and no foreigner who is residing in your midst should eat blood.'" (Leviticus 17:11-12)

Given that the Bible describes blood as something sacred belonging to God alone, would simply changing the method of taking blood for oneself bypass that principle? Would transfusing it rather than eating it really be any better than the Circumcellions using clubs instead of swords?