You know how Colorado Senate Republicans are making America great again? Legalizing switchblades.

Hear me out on this.

State Sen. Owen Hill has a bill that would make it legal to own a switchblade in Colorado. 

You read that right: make it legal. You carry an ax like a briefcase, depending on your job. You can buy as many Ginsu knives off late-night TV as your credit card can cover. And as long as you don’t swing it at anybody, you can own a machete the size of a hockey stick.

But you can’t own a pigsticker, not in Colorado.

If you think that’s crazy, so does Owen Hill.

“Again and again on the campaign trail and in calls to my office and e-mails, I hear about people who say, ‘Owen, we have too many laws on the books. We need to get rid of some of the laws,'” said the Colorado Springs lawmaker in a video on the Senate Republican YouTube page after passing the bill out of the Judiciary Committee last week.

Sen. Tim Neville and I were joking about it in the Capitol hallway the day after. He said Republicans should shoot a video in leather jackets, dark glasses and slicked-back hair. It was funnier when he said it.

A switchblade is a pocket knife, except it opens faster. The government has outlawed saving time.

That’s what you see on the surface, but there’s an undercurrent of strategy.

House and Senate Republicans are mastering the art of messaging. Both chambers have set up YouTube channels. Moreover, Senate Republicans haven’t been afraid to poke fun at themselves. Three words: Dancing Don Coram. The senator from Montrose cut a rug in a video a couple of weeks ago. In another video Neville reported on the status of a bat poop problem in the courthouse in Walsenburg. 

Visuals matter. As I said in a blog last week, a barkeeper in LoDo rode a motor scooter into the Denver mayor’s office, on to the governor’s chair and into Colorado history. 

Last week Rep. Kevin Van Winkle, a Republican from Highlands Ranch, lost the battle of the pizza box tax, but he might have painted a picture for voters in ketchup.

Restaurants have to pay tax on pizza boxes, plastic utensils, those packets of soy sauce you’ve been hoarding for a lo mein emergency. They give those things away, meaning none of that tax money they pay is coming back to them in the form of profit. They eat it or shift the tax burden to the customer. If the free-to-me stuff is subject to a sales tax, then that gives the government two bites off the same spork.

The Democrats killed the tax cut in the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, as my cohort Dan Njegomir was the first to report on ColoradoPolitics.com.

Republicans put Democrats in a box where they looked like they’re hungry to tax even a tiny packet of ketchup. That’s not a good visual if you have to run for re-election in a closely divided district.

 In politics there’s no such thing as a coincidence.

Democrats’ messaging has been about bills and a willingness to negotiate on big-picture issues, such as transportation, so far.

The first four bills introduced by the Democratic majority in the House this year were parental leave up to 18 hours a year to attend school activities, an extension of a tax credit for child care expenses, a plan to address teacher shortages and a metric to turn military training and experience into college credits.

That’s not just four pieces of legislation. That’s a statement of principles.

Democrats also have been great at mobilizing events and supporters around equal pay  for women, rain barrels and the state’s Public Lands Day the last two sessions.

But if they’re not careful, Democrats could get nicked again with switchblades.

The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 4-1 on Wednesday. Democrat Daniel Kagan, a lawyer, joined with Republicans, but Rhonda Fields of Aurora, an anti-violence crusader, did not. Among the Republicans, John Cooke, the former Weld County sheriff who is anything but soft on public safety, voted in favor.

The switchblade legalization bill – I can’t believe I just wrote that – is scheduled for a debate on the Senate floor as early as today. From the Republican-led Senate, it would bounce to the House, where moderate Democratic Rep. Steve Lebsock of Thornton will try to shepherd it past his party’s 37-28 majority. It’s a win for Republicans no matter what happens.

Legalization means the state would lose about $5,000 annually from fines, according to legislative analysts. The minimum fine for the class 1 misdemeanor is $500 with a max of $5,000, plus up to 18 months in jail. That punishment is more severe than what you could get for pointing a loaded gun at someone, which is a class 2 misdemeanor.

In the last three years, 792 people have been convicted on the knife charge, and 82 were female; 635 were white, 88 were black, 53 were Hispanic, three were American Indian, three were Asian and the rest were classified as other.

Switchblades are lumped into a section of the law on illegal weapons. Even if Senate Bill 8 becomes law, “a blackjack, gas gun (and) metallic knuckles” would remain illegal. I don’t know what a gas gun is, but how am I going to be cool at a rumble without brass knuckles?

Switchblades have been illegal since 1963, the year I was born. OK, that’s probably a coincidence.