@Backyardsounds: "I've had a few items up for many years." Unfortunately, immaterial. False positives aside, Etsy let a lot of violations slide for a very long time, and with the recent rule changes it is clear that Etsy has stepped up enforcement of those rules.
"Why does it get removed!?" While we can only speculate on what the trigger was that flagged your listing, the "violation" can be anything from a 'prohibited' word in your title, description, or tags, to a non-conforming primary image, to being misclassified in core details, to intellectual property infringements, and lot in between.
"... other people are selling the very same thing ..." Without getting into a discussion of what is fair or right or if your listing should be deactivated, the fact that there are other shops selling similar items it only means that they have not been caught yet, or those listings may not contain the same trigger that snared you. Additionally, we will not know how many other listings were deactivated using the same trigger - only those that appear to not have been.
