There is a big difference between animals in the nature and our pet snakes. I hope everybody understands that.

There is no reason to feed live. No reason to put snake at risk. You wouldn't strangle your snake to death, no reason to do it to the prey either.
But maybe this is not the place for this discussion.

Maybe OP's snake has been on f/t all his life. Maybe the previous owner just neclegted his care. Nobody knows. It's plain stupid to start with live when it may very well take f/t. If it simply wont accept f/t, then by all means give it a live one.

To give you a little perspective, here is Hope's story: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...nourished-ball
I got tons of good advice with Hope, maybe there is something useful for you too