When it first happened, my reaction was the same as everyone else. It looked fake/staged. But I told my wife we need to wait for more information to come out.
It's too easy to get invested in what you think but all the facts are not going to be available in real time.
Facts such as:
Multiple people died, including the shooter.
The shooter was a Republican,
The people who didn't run were white.
Sure you could buy into the idea that they paid someone to shoot and then have Trump cut his own ear after hearing the shot. However, if that was the case there wouldn't be any stray bullets. Plus, forensics is always going to find the bullets. shells, etc. based on the trajectory of the shooter so there's no real way to fake that unless you had them paid off as well (including the FBI).
Typically, you can't pay someone enough to get killed so its more likely that the shooting wasn't a result of being paid to do it. There are also videos of other times Trump was rushed off stage because of a threat.
Initially, to me, the gunshot didn't sound real; more like a paintball gun. But quickly I realized that it really just depends on how far away the shooter was to the POV of the recording device.
This was a real assassination attempt and I think making it seem like it wasn't is just going to end up helping Trump.