Hearsay, no documentation. And why should I do the research to support your assertion? Hello.
OK, you are lazy. So I did a quick google search for some of his quotes in later years. Here is what I came up with — and they match exactly with what I remember. If you want documentation on his votes, you can find them on google-uncle-sam, in the Senate archives.
When Senator Barry Goldwater first heard that a madman had walked into a schoolyard in Stockton, California, with a rapid-firing AK-47 and shot off 100 rounds in just two minutes, killing 5 children and wounding 30, Senator Goldwater was quoted as saying, “I’m completely opposed to selling automatic rifles ... and I’ve been a member of the NRA.” He said, “I collect, make, and shoot guns. I’ve never used an automatic or semiautomatic for hunting. There’s no need to. They have no place in anybody’s arsenal.”
He voted FOR the “Brady Bill” and also for the “Assault Weapon Ban”.
He criticized the military’s ban on homosexuals: “Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.” He also said, “You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.”
A few years before his death he went so far as to address the right wing, “Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you’ve hurt the Republican Party much more than the Democrats have.”
He changed in his later years. Either that or he fooled everyone in his earlier years.