Equipment using character maps

[peschken]

Hey guys, 

I'm trying  to use character maps in spriter in a way kind off similar to spine, as in setting a character map for my weapon whenever i pickup one.
With gamemaker I can use spriter to set character maps, but what I'm wondering is how do I like give my character a sword without replacing something with my sword sprite, as in unhiding the sword when I pick one up.

I'm still kinda new to spriter so I apologise if this is a dumb question.

Thanks!