The "government" shuts down every weekend and most holidays. Nobody freaks out.
Essential services and personnel, DON'T "shut down". Might have some effect on certain paperwork, but in general the whole "we's all gonna die cuz the gov shut down" is all a bunch of manure.
Unless I'm mistaken, most of what the gov does isn't required by law. It's allowed, funded, authorized, and promoted, but not required. Things that are required get funded, gov's bills get paid, checks written, etc, because its a violation of law not to, as long as there is any money at all.
I would think that the background check required by law is one of those things.
The system can "break", it can be "overloaded", it can be "backlogged", but I don't think its allowed to be "shutdown".
The political types will say all kinds of stuff. Most of it isn't real.
Were one party really smart, they'd be shouting gun sales must be suspended, because the other party "shut down" the govt.
DO you hear them????
crickets....
I don't.