The gun that an 8-year-old Queens boy brought to school and sold to a classmate for $3 had three live rounds in it, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Friday.

The boy's father, Ignacio Galvan, 54, was charged Friday with weapons possession and the boy also faces charges in the shocking near-miss at a Flushing school.

Kelly told reporters that the boy's father kept the Taurus 9 mm handgun on top of a refrigerator, and had scratched off its serial number.

"The father has made statements that he purchased the gun for self-protection," Kelly said.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Galvan's charges are second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child.

"Children cannot fully appreciate the potential harm a weapon can inflict and, as a parent, the defendant had a responsibility to properly secure the firearm," he said.



The weapon was discovered when the second boy brought the gun home and showed it to his mother, police said. The mom rushed to PS 107 in Flushing to report it, and school officials called police.



Galvan did not yet have a lawyer, according to the DA.



The boy who bought the gun for $3 is not being charged. Investigators believe the boy thought he was buying a toy gun, according to a source.



The 8-year-old busted on the gun charge will have his case heard in family court.



Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the loaded gun winding up in school was a "sad situation."

"That's something that can't be tolerated," he said.