Chico >> A teacher spotted a loaded gun in a 7-year-old student’s desk Thursday morning at Parkview School and secured the weapon before anyone was hurt.

The second-grader is suspected of taking the gun from his mother’s room after another student showed off a toy butane lighter and flashlight in the shape of a pistol at the school Wednesday.

“There was no intent to harm anyone,” said interim Sgt. Terry Tupper of the Chico Police Department during a press conference about the incident.

Police think the boy brought the loaded .380-caliber Ruger semiautomatic handgun as a kind of “show and tell” for his friends.

Without the proper knowledge of how to handle firearms, however, Tupper said the situation could have ended differently.

“The biggest fear was had there been a live round in the chamber and the trigger pulled, that gun very well could have killed someone,” the sergeant said.

Police suspect the child had pulled the trigger in imitation of the toy gun, which turned a blue light on when the trigger was pulled.

Luckily, although a magazine holding six rounds was loaded into the weapon, the gun did not have a round loaded into the chamber, so no bullets were fired.

Tupper said the boy’s mother may face a misdemeanor charge of criminal storage of a firearm because the weapon was unsecured. He said the investigation was ongoing, but it did not matter if the handgun had been hidden or placed on a high shelf because the child had been able to get to it.

“We as adults have a responsibility to keep our children safe,” Tupper said.

If the gun had a locking mechanism in place or if it had been kept in a locked safe, there would not be a crime. Tupper demonstrated a simple locking mechanism that uses a cable and padlock through the handle that prevents a gun from loading. He said locks are available from the Chico Police Department and firearms sellers and are usually free.

Tupper called the 7-year-old a “great student” and said his mother was a “law-abiding” citizen.

It’s a reminder to be extremely careful about gun safety, the police sergeant said.

Tupper said the teacher did the right thing.

The boy’s teacher saw the weapon in the second-grader’s desk shortly before 11 a.m. She got the children out of the room and a janitor ejected the magazine and ensured the gun was no longer loaded before turning it over to the school’s principal, who called police.

Chico Unified School District Superintendent Kelly Staley said the district does everything it can to ensure student safety.

“This ended in as positive a manner as it could have,” she said. “It’s a learning experience for all of us.”

Staley said the district’s investigation is ongoing and disciplinary measures are confidential.

But Dave McKay, the district’s incident commander, said the education code has what he called the “big five,” or five rules that call for mandatory expulsion when broken. Bringing a firearm to school is one of those rules.