There are reasons why Montana's laws are the way they are; it's a state-level initiative to curb addiction and drunk driving problems. The state, as a whole, has much higher DUI and binge drinking rates than average. Whether the approach will work long-term remains to be seen.
There are recent changes that have been made to curb the problem, but state liquor stores and limited liquor licenses are not related to them. The state licensing runs back almost to the end of prohibition. Also you can purchase liquor from bars; in most small towns the bar(s) double as liquor stores. The state liquor licenses (the licenses given to bars to sell hard liquor) are assigned to a county (more recently changed to include specific urban areas), and generally only reclaimed when they are abandoned (ie bar closes, and no one buys the license).
As with the broad trend in the country, the rural population is declining as more people move into the cities. So while some very rural counties might be limited in access if there are no bars around, many actually have a very high bar/license per capita.
All this to say, access to alcohol is probably not a limiting factor. As to why we don't shop drunk, I don't really have any insight.
Love this. I grew up with state run / controlled liquor, too, (heck, no
groceries on Sundays was a real thing where I was from) and worked a bit in Norway where it was highly controlled at the retail level, similar to the 1970's when I grew up. None if it really stopped people from drinking. The more controls, the more drinking, it seemed.
I like to think that people in Montana are responsible about their shopping and that Montana was likely an early adoption state for the technology, given the rural %'s.... I mean, it's not like people drunk shopped the sears' catalogue, back in the day. (Oh the funny images that puts into my head, for some reason... Getting my mom tipsy so she would buy me the cool outfit for school. LOL.. ah, assuming Sears had cool outfits.. did I mention I did not grow up in a large urban city?.....)