4-Year-Old Brought Loaded Gun to Preschool, Police Say

A 4-year-old boy was suspended for a year after he took his parents’ loaded pistol to his Oklahoma preschool, police and school officials said Tuesday.

The two-shot .38-caliber pistol was loaded with especially lethal hollow-point bullets, which are designed to maximize damage to a target by flattening on impact.

Police in Putnam City, a suburb of Oklahoma City, said the boy, thinking the weapon was a toy, took the gun from a table next to his parents’ bed, put it into his backpack along with a toy pistol and took it to school Oct. 25.

The case only became public this week.

A teacher quickly discovered the real gun when she searched his backpack after he started playing with the toy version, school officials said.