No because if they have to kill a guy, if it's the last resort, they'll still do it today. But maybe they'll kill him with more cautiousness. No bodies on the street, no bodies at all, just disappearances.
This has been mentioned before. But when a known OC figure just disappears, it creates just as much heat as if they found the body. And when's the last time you heard of a high profile mob guy disappearing? It's been sixteen years since Ralphie Coppola vanished.
The mob is surviving because they've curbed the murders (and disappearances
). If there was a mob war today, like, say, the Colombo war on the early '90s, the Feds would turn it on like a light switch.
The mob is only as strong as the government allows them to be. If they keep the status quo, they'll be around for some time to come. But if bodies start dropping again, the Feds will turn it up to the point where the harassment of John Gotti will look like it was run by a team of ACLU lawyers.
