Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and Police Chief George Turner are in obvious need of psychological help, perhaps best sought after they resign for failing to follow Georgia laws because of their shared mental illness.

in 2012, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law S.B. 350, which required local governments to make an effort to return firearms to “innocent owners” – just as any stolen property might be. No problem there.

The law doesn’t stop with that. State lawmakers decided that, just like juvenile delinquents, all guns deserve a second chance at finding a worthy parent. Local governments are now supposed to auction off all confiscated but unclaimed firearms to a properly licensed dealer.

Who will then arrange for the guns to be placed in new, and presumably legal hands.

Atlanta Police Chief George Turner understands what the law requires when it comes to the city’s captured arsenal. “We have an obligation to re-sell that, re-bid that, and get that to gun purchasers so they can re-sell those,” Turner told a CBS46 reporter this week.

But the police chief added this: “The city of Atlanta has not done that.” To put those firearms back on the street would be “catastrophic,” Turner said.

So the city has decided to slow-walk its legal obligation. It hasn’t destroyed the weapons, but neither has it held any auctions – which are required at least every six months, online or in the flesh.

Like so many anti-gun Democrats, Reed and Turner seem to lack the intellectual heft or logical thought processes to comprehend that firearms are inanimate objects, devoid of a soul or personality.

Instead, they have a tribal, totemic and indeed childish belief that these firearms confiscated as the result of law enforcement investigations are “bad,” and that these firearms would project their evil onto law-abiding citizens if they follow the law and return them to their rightful owners (if stolen) or sell these guns to firearms wholesalers, who would then sell them to retailers, who would then sell these firearms to law-abiding citizens who passed FBI NICS background checks.

Folks, if you think the ownership of a tool can turn you into a murdering criminal, you are in deep need of psychological help.

While the 2012 law has no penalties for those municipalities and police chiefs who refuse to comply with the law, refusing to return stolen property smells a heck of a lot like theft in my book, and certainly seems to meet the moral criteria, despite any legal loopholes.

If I were a Georgia resident that had my firearms stolen in a burglary, and found out that Atlanta recovered my firearms but was refusing to return them, I’d be livid and would consider suing to have them returned.

If I were an Atlanta resident, I’d be irate that the city is refusing to sell thousands of firearms and return some money back to the city budget that could be used to help the homeless, feed the hungry, etc.

Mayor Reed and Chief Turner need to either comply with the law, or resign.