If Gotti didn't have so much law enforcement pressure sure he would have retaliated. He simply became too high profile to where he couldn't do anything without everybody knowing about it.
Indeed, the other side of that same coin was that Gotti's enemies also couldn't get to him either because of the 24/7 attention for the man from the media, the government and the public. Imagine that John Gotti would've had his heyday in 2018, with the social media and all, he probably would have one of his cronies keep up his Instagram, Facebook and Twitter pages.. LOL
