If they are shooting at you, you know you must be doing something right. (A quote from West Wing)

This seems to be appropriate, to a point, here.

Most "takedowns" are from people that feel "threatened".

If you've lived too long, or gained too much power...there are some that will take you out and explain it away as pre-emptive.

"I killed you cause I fucking felt like it." (Apologies if this doesn't fit into your resume, but it is refreshing to the rest of us when we can hear the truth, unladen with bullshit.)

This is NOT a retaliation, as I've been alive a while. 

The bottom line is...those in power, will inevitably do whatever the fuck they want. Period. Full Stop.

Your/Our job is, to do everything in our power to keep our direct superiors alive, whatever it takes. 

Be loyal to your Crew Leader, and your district Godfather. 

In time, it might be you in that position of power, so learn from everything you see and hear till then.

If they are shooting at me I probably did a lot of things right.

TinyTina laughs manically. 

Heck, when are they not shooting at me is the real question. 

She says through laughs. All the laughs. She takes a big breath to put a stop to her fit of giggles.

You say tomato and I say tomato. You say threats, I say paranoia. The world just keeps spinning. 

Threats, paranoia, "I killed you because I fucking felt like it", speeches loaded with excuses. So many reasons there are swirling around. 

Maria nods a hello to Salvatore-Maranzano.

It's an interesting topic you've brought to our streets today, so I thank you for that. 

There's a lot of truths to the words that you say, there's a lot of what you say that resonates greatly. In particular, this.

If they are shooting at you, you know you must be doing something right.

There's a few quotes along these lines that run similarly. But to put it bluntly, if people are putting time and energy into making you die, then, to me at least, that's just a reason to try twice as hard to stay alive. Because if they want you dead so much as you are, imagine how much more you could make them want that? Nice thought, no? 

The knowledge that people want me dead has certainly only served to spur me on, I know that much. 

Most "takedowns" are from people that feel "threatened".

If you've lived too long, or gained too much power...there are some that will take you out and explain it away as pre-emptive.

"I killed you cause I fucking felt like it." (Apologies if this doesn't fit into your resume, but it is refreshing to the rest of us when we can hear the truth, unladen with bullshit.)

This is the part I'd particularly like to comment on, though.

Paranoia, feeling threatened, killing because an individual feels like it... eh, yeah, you can sum up a LOT of takedowns with those three reasons alone. But I think that there is one reason, which includes all of those, which goes above all of those, which sums up much of what happens in this world.

"It was what was best for business". 

Top guy in our world kills somebody who is gaining power and status, who could one day prove a threat to him and his people?

"It was what was best for business".

District(s) wiped out because of "rumours" and "logs", which may have varying degrees of accuracy but have been taken as containing at least fractions of truths?

"It was what was best for business". 

Killing due to simply feeling like causing death? I'm guessing that if somebody is in a position to do that, the result of such an attack will still be what's best for business.

Because the truth of it is, more than anything else, people will do what suits them best, what suits their business interests best. Sure, the excuses dress that up, and it'd definitely be nice to see more direct honesty about that, but at the end of the day, I believe what's best for business drives our world much more than merely fancying a bit of a go at killing people does.