The Justice Department is proposing rule changes that will effectively ban bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire like a machine gun, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Friday.

"After the senseless attack in Las Vegas, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that is in keeping with the Constitution and the laws passed by Congress," Sessions said in a statement.

Sessions has been a defender of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms.

Gunman Stephen Paddock used a bump stock in a massacre last October that killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others at a music festival in Las Vegas.

Authorities said Paddock’s ability to fire hundreds of rounds per minute over a 10-minute period from his 32nd-floor hotel suite was a major factor in the high casualty count.

In February, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum directing the Justice Department to make the regulatory change.

"As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period," Trump said on Twitter as the announcement was made. "We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns."

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Related:

Sessions Proposes a Ban on Bump Stocks [Bloomberg]