FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- School officials confiscated on Friday morning a gun that a third-grade student brought to school, police said.

A student at Walker Elementary School in the 1000 block of Northwest Fourth Street told a teacher that a classmate had brought a gun to class.

Classmates said the 8-year-old boy showed the gun off in a closet in the classroom.

"The rest of my group, they said he had a gun, and then we told the teacher," said third-grader Diandre Witherspoon.

The teacher notified school officials, who took the gun away, Fort Lauderdale police said.

School officials said it was a .9-mm handgun and that the boy brought it from home. He also had a clip full of bullets, but the weapon was not ready to fire. There was no round in the chamber, Local 10's Roger Lohse reported.

"The magazine was in the gun at the time it was shown to the student, and then when the teacher recovered it, the magazine was outside of the gun," said Fort Lauderdale police Sgt. Frank Sousa.

"Even if it wasn't loaded, or was loaded, if it would have gone off, that would have been another tragic situation," said parent Nickie Williams.

Several parents showed up at Walker after the incident, some in disbelief that children so young were exposed to a deadly weapon. For Tammie Slaughter, Friday was the second time this week one of her children had a close call. Her older child goes to Dillard High School, where a student was fatally shot on Wednesday.

"What's going on in the home with these children, where they live? How do they have access to guns?" Slaughter said.

Police commended the students who alerted the teacher, but they said the job of keeping kids safe starts at home.

"If you're a parent with a firearm, obviously the responsibility falls back on you," Sousa said.

The boy has been charged with bringing a gun on school property, a felony. Police are still trying to determine who owns the weapon. That person could face charges for allowing the boy to have access to the gun.

The school was never placed on lockdown. No one was injured.

The incident came just two days after a fatal shooting at Dillard High School, which is in the same school district. For more information, click on the following links:

November 14, 2008: Officials Investigate Claim That Teacher Knew About Gun Before Shooting

November 14, 2008: Counselors Attend To Mourning Students, Faculty

November 13, 2008: Teen Charged In Fatal Shooting At Dillard High School