John Lennon death anniversary: Yoko Ono tweets pic of former Beatle's bloodied glasses

It's the 35th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, who was shot death in New York City in 1980 by crazed fan Mark David Chapman. And the former Beatle's artiste and social activist wife Yoko Ono tweeted the image of the star's blood-splattered glasses and called for an end to gun violence.

To commemorate Lennon's death, Ono tweeted, "Over 1,100,000 people killed by guns in the USA since @JohnLennon was shot and killed on Dec 8 1980." She then added the hashtag, "#StopGunViolence.

Ono and Lennon were married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969. They were married for 11 years before Lennon was murdered outside their New York apartment in 1980. The 40-year-old was shot four times in the back by Mark Chapman who had asked for his autograph only hours before he laid in wait and killed him.

The recent calls for tougher gun control laws in the States follows comes at a time when gun violence in America has reached record highs with more than 50 school shootings in 2015 alone.

The 25-year-old gunman had bought the .38 caliber revolver in Honolulu, where only a driver's license was needed for the transaction.

Talking about the tweet, Christian Science Monitor reported that Ono has used the same image of Lennon's bloodied spectacles, placed in front of a hazy New York skyline, to protest gun violence over the past 15 years. Following the Columbine massacre in 1999, she promoted the image on two billboards she rented in New York and Los Angeles. And in 2013, she tweeted it out four times to her 3.7 million followers. One was retweeted by President Obama's account.

According to data from the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rolling Stone reports, some 1.15 million people have died from gunshots in the US since Lennon died. And since 1968, the year "The White Album" was released, more Americans have been killed by gun violence than in all American wars throughout history.