An Eldorado High School student who took a loaded handgun to school Friday threatened to shoot the weapon during lunchtime, a Clark County School District source said.

School district police arrested the 10th-grader about 8:15 a.m. after learning of the gun. A girl at the school reported it to authorities after the student gave her a note warning her to run the other way if she heard gunfire during the lunch break, the source said.

"Apparently, his girlfriend was breaking up with him and he was upset," said the source, who asked not to be named.

After being warned about the threat, police and school officials pulled the student from shop class and found a loaded 9 mm handgun on him, said officer Darnell Couthen, spokesman for the school district police.

The teen was booked into the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center on misdemeanor charges of illegally possessing a gun, carrying a concealed weapon and making threats to do bodily harm.

Assistant East Region Superintendent Rebecca Kaatz said she was told that the threat was very unspecific. She did not have a copy of the note.

"It was not anything that showed he was going after particular individuals," Kaatz said late Friday.

Couthen also said the threat wasn't specific. "He made threats, and whether he was going to carry them out or not, we don't know," he said.

According to district crime statistics, school police confiscated 72 guns in 2003-04, up from 45 in 2002-03. Figures for 2004-05 weren't available on Friday

"Is it a regular thing for us? No, it's not," Couthen said. "But it's something we have to deal with."

Eldorado High School was the site of a fatal shooting in August 1990 when a gang fight in the cafeteria ended with one student dead.

Curtis E. Collins, 15, was charged with murder in the shooting of Donnie Lee Bolden. Collins pleaded no contest to the slaying and was sentenced to life in prison. He since has been paroled.