I once saw a comparison of violent crime stats between Vancouver and Seattle. It's higher in Seattle, until you control for demography. Once you look at the stats for the population of Seattle with a similar ethnic.socioeconomic composition as in Vancouver, voila... No diff.
As for fear of the gun, consider Brazil. The prevalence of guns in Brazil is unknown but certainly high. This is known because private gun ownership is negligible but gun crime is at the highest rate in the world. Indeed, Sao Paolo is recognized as the world's most dangerous city. Total prohibition hasn't helped, but it certainly ensures that you cannot purchase weapons for self-defense unless you want to be a criminal. if you think you're going to eliminate 400 million legal and illegal weapons, you're living in a dream world. Besides, even then, safety is an illusion. Zero legal gun ownership just makes gang home invasion a freebie. After all, only the high capacity magazine evens those odds for the homeowner, as the UK found, post prohibition ( they saw a spike in violent crime).
http://www.theamericanengineer.com/british-gun-ban-of-1997-led-to-huge-spike-in-violent-crime/ How's that one working out for you?