Tag Archive | Yoko Ono
March 27, 2013  

Yoko Ono uses photo of John Lennon’s bloodied glasses in plea for gun control

Artist tweets picture of glasses worn by singer when he was shot dead in 1980, and says US has become like ‘war zone’

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono, who tweeted that more than 1 million people had been shot dead in the US since John Lennon’s death. Photograph: Dave M Benett/Getty Images

 

Better known among her nearly 3.7 million Twitter followers for more gnomic 140-character missives – “You are water. I’m water. We’re all water in different containers. That’s why it’s so easy to meet. Someday we’ll evaporate together.” – Yoko Ono has taken to the social network site to offer a more visceral message, tweeting an image of John Lennon‘s bloodstained glasses as part of a call for greater gun control.

The 80-year-old artist and musician tweeted a picture of the glassesworn by Lennon on the night he was shot dead coupled with the message: “Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980.” The photo, showing the glasses on a windowsill with New York’s Central Park in the background, was the cover of Ono’s 1981 album Season of Glass, her first recording after her then husband was murdered by Mark Chapman outside their apartment building in the city.

 

Over 1,057,000 people have been killed by guns in the USA since John Lennon was shot and killed on 8 Dec 1980. pic.twitter.com/xxXU3gSlaD

View image on Twitter
 
 

Ono tweeted the image a further three times, with the messages: “31,537 people are killed by guns in the USA every year. We are turning this beautiful country into war zone“; “Together, let’s bring back America, the green land of peace“; and finally, “The death of a loved one is a hollowing experience. After 33 years our son Sean and I still miss him. Yoko Ono Lennon“.

Ono has been a political activist for decades, but her contribution to the gun control debate is notable in the aftermath of the shooting in December last year in which 20 young children were killed at a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Thank you to the Guardian for this article.