Weeks after the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting left two San Jose children among the dead, Mayor Sam Liccardo is calling for strict new measures that would be the first of their kind in the nation to curb gun violence.

Recalling the victims he met in the hospital who want to see the senseless tragedies stop, the mayor on Monday proposed requiring gun owners in the nation’s 10th largest city to either carry liability insurance or pay a fee to cover taxpayer costs — such as emergency response and medical care — associated with firearm violence.

“Gun ownership is an inherently dangerous activity,” Liccardo told reporters at City Hall, adding that simply offering thoughts and prayers is not adequate anymore. “We have to act to protect our communities.”

Liccardo likened the proposal to attempts to lower smoking rates and car crashes. Motorists, he pointed out, are required to carry auto insurance, and tobacco consumption is taxed both to discourage smoking and cover the costs of smoke-related illnesses and death.

But gun rights groups are vowing that if the City Council approves such a requirement, they will take San Jose to court.

“We think it’s really misguided,” said George Lee, an attorney representing firearm groups like the Firearms Policy Coalition.

Under Liccardo’s plan, liability insurance would cover the accidental discharge of a gun, along with “intentional acts” by people who steal or borrow a gun from a gun owner. He acknowledged that insurers won’t cover “intentional conduct” by a gun owner.

But Lee pushed back at the idea that any intentional criminal acts, regardless of who commits them, would be insurable. And, he said, a liability insurance program wouldn’t stop someone like the Gilroy shooter — who in late July killed three people and wounded more than a dozen others before turning the gun on himself at the world-famous Gilroy Garlic Festival as it was drawing to a close.

“It’s yet another burden on gun owners,” he said of the idea, suggesting the mayor was grasping for a way to feel better about the incident.

Liccardo acknowledged there “may need to be some evolution in the [insurance] industry,” but hopes other cities locally and elsewhere will consider the proposal in the future.

Liccardo also called for a gun and ammunition sales tax to fund gun safety classes, gun violence prevention programs and victim assistance services, as well as a cash rewards program for anyone who reports a person who has unlawfully obtained guns or weapons. He also wants the city to explore a program that would allow parents to consent to local law enforcement searching their children or their property.

“With this measure, we won’t suddenly end gun violence,” Liccardo said. “But we’re going to stop paying for it.”

None of the proposals will become law immediately. The insurance program and fee would have to be approved by the City Council, and a tax would have to make its way to voters through the ballot. Even if the insurance or fee proposal became law, any enforcement — as with drivers — would only occur if police or other officials came into contact with someone with a gun and requested proof of compliance.

And, Liccardo acknowledged, any fee system would have to use blockchain technology or something similar to keep transactions private to avoid violating a state law that prevents local governments from creating gun registries.

For people who can’t or don’t get insurance, the fee option would help cover emergency services and medical costs, among other things, he said.

Vice Mayor Chappie Jones, who has firsthand experience with gun violence, supports the mayor’s proposals.

“Our community and our country are still in pain,” Jones said, referring not only to the Gilroy shooting, but recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. “We must do something to change this violence.”

As a 19-year-old in south Sacramento, Jones recalled, an irate guy tried to cut him off in a Jack in the Box drive thru and then, when Jones held firm, chased him through red lights and around corners to a friend’s house, shooting at him and the car. Jones was not struck, police eventually located a group and a 17-year-old was convicted of the shooting spree. Still, he said, the incident left a lasting impression.

“I know there is going to be a lot of strong opposition,” the vice mayor said. But, he added, when he called his parents to tell them what happened, the weight of what it would mean for them to lose a son and “how they would never, ever be the same” hit him — a pain the families of the two San Jose residents killed in Gilroy — 6-year-old Stephen Romero and 13-year-old Keyla Salazar — are experiencing.

The idea has at least some support at the state level, too.

“Since Trump and his Republican allies have abdicated their responsibility to address our country’s gun violence crisis, cities and states must lead,” Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) said in a statement, “and I applaud Mayor Liccardo and San Jose’s bold leadership on this innovative solution.”

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna also backed the idea.

It’s not the first time Liccardo has tried to limit gun violence, at least locally. In February, the mayor proposed having gun retailers in the city record all firearm purchases on video and banning home gun sales as part of a package of changes to San Jose’s gun safety ordinance. Those proposals are still in the works.

Still, Liccardo said Monday he is pushing ahead with other ideas.

“As Silicon Valley’s largest city,” Liccardo said, “if we prove up this innovative solution and scale it across other cities and states, the history of ‘harm reduction’ efforts instructs that we can make a long-term impact.”