President Obama's campaign arm retweeted Yoko Ono's photo of her murdered husband John Lennon's bloody glasses Thursday night, just as the Senate was preparing a new gun-control package.

The picture was published on Yoko Ono's account a day earlier. The tweet contained the text: "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, which could be viewed Thursday night on the @BarackObama Twitter account, showed a close-up of Lennon's blood-splattered glasses.

The image was retweeted by Obama's Organizing for Action account, which is the grassroots group that pushes the president's policies. OFA circulated the image around the same time that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he was moving forward with bringing a gun-control package to the floor.

The base bill will include expanded background checks, and other provisions dealing with school safety and gun trafficking. In a blow to sponsor Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that bill will not include an assault-weapons ban, but Reid said the ban would get a vote as an amendment.

The Organizing for Action account, shortly after retweeting Yoko Ono's statement and photo, also quoted Reid on the importance of universal background checks. "In order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks," Reid said, in a comment posted on the OFA account.

Meanwhile, the gun-control push at the federal and state levels continues to run into stiff resistance. The National Rifle Association joined the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association and other groups Thursday in a lawsuit against New York's strict new gun laws. The NRA has aggressively lobbied against a renewed assault-weapons ban or a ban on high-capacity magazines at the federal level.